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I am sorry, maybe I'm just stupid, but I don' t see what the quote is, you arer writing about?
What did Kiichi actually say?

Even without getting this, I am deeply convinced that "the things that Ueshiba did, ... were very very old"!

I had the same problem. The only quote I could find was when Ueshiba told Henry Kono he couldn't do what Uesiba did because Kono didn't understand yin and yang.

Interesting stuff about Kiichi, but I didn't find what he said. I got the idea, though, that Kiichi's statement inspired Morihei's statement. Maybe it wasn't what he "said" so much as what he taught, which was here: "Kiichi Hogen also had a reputation as an expert in Onmyodo, also called Inyodo (陰陽道), which is literally "The Way of In and Yo" ("In and Yo" = "Yin and Yang", for the Chinese speakers)."

This does seem to be exactly the same line that Donn Draegger described in his budo series.

Cheers.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

Ha! Seems that the actual quote that I was talking about didn't make it into the actual blog post (it was in the draft copy, I swear!). Anyway, I added the text of the original quotation. Sorry for any confusion!

Hi Chris, I really think your blogs are setting the stage for some long needed re-examination of established viewpoints. I'd like to go over a couple of points.

In your last paragraph you state:

Quote:

What if Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba was an internal martial artist

I'm not sure whether people unfamiliar with "In Yo" get from reading the blog that this is an established aspect of Internal (Martial Arts) Training. Even in case some do, that is not to say all folks view In Yo the same, even within an Internal Martial Arts paradigm. Also since the quotation itself does little to explain how this 2+8/3+7 etc. model actually transfers on the physical (Internal Paradigm) plane.
So, the conclusion that Morihei Ueshiba was an internal martial artist based on his reference to this quotation, I fear, will for the uninitiated remain a gigantic puzzle. Or at least a big leap of faith.

I suspect the same goes for the next part of your concluding question.

Quote:

in a community filled with students researching and developing the same principles

Since your blog is addressed also/mostly(?) to those outside the Aiki/IP/IT/IS etc. paradigm, I'm not sure whether your first three excellent questions....

Quote:

How will that change how we evaluate his writings and training?
How will the established history and methodology of Aikido change when considered through the lens of greater knowledge?
What if the things that Ueshiba did, instead of being very very new, were very very old?

....automatically lead to the suggestion Ueshiba was an Internal Martial Artist. Even though you know I believe he was

Hi Chris, I really think your blogs are setting the stage for some long needed re-examination of established viewpoints. I'd like to go over a couple of points.

In your last paragraph you state:

I'm not sure whether people unfamiliar with "In Yo" get from reading the blog that this is an established aspect of Internal (Martial Arts) Training. Even in case some do, that is not to say all folks view In Yo the same, even within an Internal Martial Arts paradigm. Also since the quotation itself does little to explain how this 2+8/3+7 etc. model actually transfers on the physical (Internal Paradigm) plane.
So, the conclusion that Morihei Ueshiba was an internal martial artist based on his reference to this quotation, I fear, will for the uninitiated remain a gigantic puzzle. Or at least a big leap of faith.

I suspect the same goes for the next part of your concluding question.

Since your blog is addressed also/mostly(?) to those outside the Aiki/IP/IT/IS etc. paradigm, I'm not sure whether your first three excellent questions....

....automatically lead to the suggestion Ueshiba was an Internal Martial Artist. Even though you know I believe he was

fwiw

Sure - that's mostly foreshadowing for things to come. Or I hope so...

I didn't want to get too deep into anything technical here, I'm not sure that I'll get too far into technical matters at all. I wanted to set the stage a little bit and point out the Chinese connection in a simple manner, I don't know if that came through or not.

It's been a while since I've really written anything of that length, so a lot of things are a little rusty.

Hi Guys
I don't think Chris's blogs -like Ellis's book- was ever meant to conclusively prove anything, but rather to highlight facts and spur research.
There is a way to take it a step further:

Detail the writings and sayings of Morihei Ueshiba for what they were; direct quotes of Chinese internal principles.

Then directly correlate or establish those same saying to the internal work in the Chinese arts.

Then demonstrate their use and what they actually mean in aikido.

This has never been done before by anyone capable of the work. I have not read of, met or seen any Japanese Shihan capable of the fullness of this endeavor. In fact due to the requirements inherent in the work, I think it is best left to westerners and it is heavily in process.

Hi Chris, sure, no problem. I more then appreciate the effort, plus, you can see how my writing skills hold up

I think Dan is spot on but then, just because it is HE who is saying this, some people will tend to be prejudiced/biassed in the first place. There is no escaping the facts, but as you say, it's setting the stage first. It would make a rather compelling case to investigate and present this terrain under these conditions. IOW when is the next Blog due?

Hi Chris, sure, no problem. I more then appreciate the effort, plus, you can see how my writing skills hold up

I think Dan is spot on but then, just because it is HE who is saying this, some people will tend to be prejudiced/biassed in the first place. There is no escaping the facts, but as you say, it's setting the stage first. It would make a rather compelling case to investigate and present this terrain under these conditions. IOW when is the next Blog due?

Well I accept the bias for what it is and it only exists from a distance; in person everything is made clear and that...right quick. For whatever reasons face to face on a mat spurs communication and friendships.

Setting that aside, most reasonable and intelligent people are going to see the facts and Ueshiba's standing in the world of Martial arts; both historically and contextually in a way never seen before.
Dan

Ha! Seems that the actual quote that I was talking about didn't make it into the actual blog post (it was in the draft copy, I swear!). Anyway, I added the text of the original quotation. Sorry for any confusion!

Best,

Chris

Thanks to Chris for a VERY thought provoking blog entry...

I just wanted to point out that John Stevens's book Budo Secrets contains text from Ki-ichi Hogen. The selection in Stevens's book is longer (in English) than what Chris included in his blog, but I don't know how different the two texts are in Japanese. In his very short intro to this section, Stevens writes that "These teachings have been widely employed by martial arts instructors over the centuries and are still in use. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, often quoted from this list when teaching and demonstrating Aikido techniques, and so did my Aikido teacher Rinjiro Shirata."

I just wanted to point out that John Stevens's book Budo Secrets contains text from Ki-ichi Hogen. The selection in Stevens's book is longer (in English) than what Chris included in his blog, but I don't know how different the two texts are in Japanese. In his very short intro to this section, Stevens writes that "These teachings have been widely employed by martial arts instructors over the centuries and are still in use. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, often quoted from this list when teaching and demonstrating Aikido techniques, and so did my Aikido teacher Rinjiro Shirata."

Matt Fisher
Allegheny Aikido
Pittsburgh, PA

I know what it means, why it is practical and how to do it...as well as how to fail in just trying to mimic it.
I have seen a few Japanese Aikido Shihan display it and never tell anyone what they were doing or how they could do it too. I both explain and teach it at every seminar.

It is yet again another example of what the vast majority in Aikido do not know about the teachings of their founder and what they thought was spiritual, turns out to be foundational and incredibly practical-with weapons and without.
Dan

I just wanted to point out that John Stevens's book Budo Secrets contains text from Ki-ichi Hogen. The selection in Stevens's book is longer (in English) than what Chris included in his blog, but I don't know how different the two texts are in Japanese. In his very short intro to this section, Stevens writes that "These teachings have been widely employed by martial arts instructors over the centuries and are still in use. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, often quoted from this list when teaching and demonstrating Aikido techniques, and so did my Aikido teacher Rinjiro Shirata."

And here's my translation. I've posted this before somewhere on these forums (with some small alterations):

Quote:

If it comes, then meet it, if it leaves, then send it away.
If it resists, than harmonize it.
5 and 5 are 10.
2 and 8 are 10.
1 and 9 are 10.
You should harmonize like this.
Intuit true and false, know what is hidden,
The large suppresses all, the small enters the microscopic.
There are chances for life and death, without reacting to changes.
Approach things without moving your heart (without being disturbed).

I used the other text because that was the one in the Suganuma interview, and therefore easier to follow for the point that I was making - but this one is a little more extensive.

I know what it means, why it is practical and how to do it...as well as how to fail in just trying to mimic it.
I have seen a few Japanese Aikido Shihan display it and never tell anyone what they were doing or how they could do it too. I both explain and teach it at every seminar.

It is yet again another example of what the vast majority in Aikido do not know about the teachings of their founder and what they thought was spiritual, turns out to be foundational and incredibly practical-with weapons and without.
Dan

I didn't want to get into any "how to do" stuff - that's a whole other can of worms!

I didn't want to get into any "how to do" stuff - that's a whole other can of worms!

I'll stick to making my small points for the moment.

Best,

Chris

If it comes, then meet it, if it leaves, then send it away.
If it resists, than harmonize it.
5 and 5 are 10.
2 and 8 are 10.
1 and 9 are 10.
You should harmonize like this.
Intuit true and false, know what is hidden,
The large suppresses all, the small enters the microscopic.
There are chances for life and death, without reacting to changes.
Approach things without moving your heart (without being disturbed).
Just read that!!! In light of what is being revealed in seminars!
I still haven't gotten over how much he laid at their feet and to think they said things like...."We couldn't wait for him to shut up, so we could go back and train...."
And then decades of mistranslated and untranslated instructions all pointing the way.
Sigh
Dan

If it comes, then meet it, if it leaves, then send it away.If it resists, than harmonize it.
5 and 5 are 10.
2 and 8 are 10.
1 and 9 are 10.
You should harmonize like this.
Intuit true and false, know what is hidden,
The large suppresses all, the small enters the microscopic.
There are chances for life and death, without reacting to changes.
Approach things without moving your heart (without being disturbed).

Just read that!!! In light of what is being revealed in seminars!
I still haven't gotten over how much he laid at their feet and to think they said things like...."We couldn't wait for him to shut up, so we could go back and train...."
And then decades of mistranslated and untranslated instructions all pointing the way.
Sigh
Dan

Ya know, all that stuff is very revealing, but without an explanation within the proper context, it don't mean a thing and could very easily send people off on tangents that can totally skew what is really being said - IOW, everyone will filter it through their own levels of understand AND expectations as to what they want it to mean -

I just wanted to point out that John Stevens's book Budo Secrets contains text from Ki-ichi Hogen. The selection in Stevens's book is longer (in English) than what Chris included in his blog, but I don't know how different the two texts are in Japanese. In his very short intro to this section, Stevens writes that "These teachings have been widely employed by martial arts instructors over the centuries and are still in use. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, often quoted from this list when teaching and demonstrating Aikido techniques, and so did my Aikido teacher Rinjiro Shirata."

Ya know, all that stuff is very revealing, but without an explanation within the proper context, it don't mean a thing and could very easily send people off on tangents that can totally skew what is really being said - IOW, everyone will filter it through their own levels of understand AND expectations as to what they want it to mean -

Greg

That is the point Greg.
No further information was offered then.
None has been available since.
I do not believe -any- of the post war Japanese know this stuff, nor how to teach it. For the most part Morihei Ueshiba's explanation for power and aiki is dead to them.

I have every intention of helping out...in person. I have no intention what-so-ever of arguing any more over this truly wonderful teaching on the net with people who can't deliver in person-yet are convinced that they already know.
I'm going to wait for the book.
Take the long view. It will come out well in the end. Truth is wonderful and has healing qualities.

I'm not sure whether people unfamiliar with "In Yo" get from reading the blog that this is an established aspect of Internal (Martial Arts) Training. Even in case some do, that is not to say all folks view In Yo the same, even within an Internal Martial Arts paradigm. Also since the quotation itself does little to explain how this 2+8/3+7 etc. model actually transfers on the physical (Internal Paradigm) plane.
So, the conclusion that Morihei Ueshiba was an internal martial artist based on his reference to this quotation, I fear, will for the uninitiated remain a gigantic puzzle. Or at least a big leap of faith.

I suspect the same goes for the next part of your concluding question.

Since your blog is addressed also/mostly(?) to those outside the Aiki/IP/IT/IS etc. paradigm, I'm not sure whether your first three excellent questions....

....automatically lead to the suggestion Ueshiba was an Internal Martial Artist. Even though you know I believe he was

fwiw

Hi Ernesto
To answer the question of connecting the link to internal power -from Ueshiba to China. It's a no brainer and irrefutable. It is in black and white in Ueshiba's correctly translated works with their counterparts being wirtten in translated Chinese works and in the history of budo in Japan.
It hasn't appeared anywhere because the authors did not have the skills necessary to the task. They could point and speculate but lacking the physical skills and not having the translation ability was a significant hurdle.
If you look to the literature we have discussed you will find innumerable references; both in specific reference and in detailed application. I am sure at this point you can see it action in the ICMA and in Aikido as well. An interesting study is to compare the movement of Tohei and Ueshiba it is clear that Tohei -while powerful-didn't get it in its fullness and was not incorporating the same method of movement as Ueshiba whihc more fully incorporated this model.

In and of itself it is interesting to understand how a link between; In/Yo ho, Heaven/earth/man and the above passage from the tora no maki is a requirement, the former empowers the later, otherwise people can only mimic with limited results. It's a pure comedy that a few Japanese shihan have shown it, but crippled as they are by their Japanese teaching model, it is all but useless to train with them and hope to ever get anywhere.
Dan

As I hope was evident in my post, I was raising questions thinking mostly of those people who remain unconvinced there is actually anything to "Internal Training."
Fact is, a lot of aikido practitioners are....unconvinced that is. For those who are not, Chris' points are all but affirming established viewpoints. However, what I think Chris is attempting to show/do, is make a case in favour of IT being a well established aspect to Ueshiba finding it's origin way back to China (among other things - sorry if I'm misrepresenting your aims here Chris).

For the "non-believers", it would do good, I think, to carefully outline where and how IT has it's place in Ueshiba's training regime. I think Chris did an excellent job raising those questions. I don't care much whether these are uncomfortable or not. They need to be addressed.

However, the link from references to In Yo, ten/chi/jin, etc. in Ueshiba's writing and making the case that he therefore was an Internal Martial Artist for people with no experience with IT - who therefore miss an IMO essential frame of reference for a proper context - is not a "leap" that will follow automatically. I can see people reading the references but reading the claims that those references are part of a tangible training approach from the IP/Aiki partisans still sounds like a case of trying to convince people.
The arguments in favour of this viewpoint - if the desire is to get the point across that that was what he was - IMO doesn't need a repeat of the same things: pointing to all of his references to IT. I think the point first needs to be made that these references ARE aspects of IT. And then we are right back to where Aikiweb was some 5 years ago.....but...

How come all those firy debates concerning IT have all but gone? Some people may have become tired. Some are happy to dwell in their own beliefs and don't want things to change.
I've been reading, ocassionaly posting, on the various forums for 10+ years now and it seems like almost all has been said. The exciting times are now less shared online but more in person. Still, we, I, have the internet to thank for that.

Well, a little too much red wine, too late a time, and some lamenting on times when Aikiweb was a little more exciting. I do think these are exciting times though! But then I have my viewpoints firmly rooted within the IT paradigm. C'mon people! It's a fun place to be! Come share the fun!

As I hope was evident in my post, I was raising questions thinking mostly of those people who remain unconvinced there is actually anything to "Internal Training."
Fact is, a lot of aikido practitioners are....unconvinced that is. For those who are not, Chris' points are all but affirming established viewpoints. However, what I think Chris is attempting to show/do, is make a case in favour of IT being a well established aspect to Ueshiba finding it's origin way back to China (among other things - sorry if I'm misrepresenting your aims here Chris).

Pretty close, I'm not (quite) saying what it is (although I threw in some hints for fun), and in a way what it is is irrelevant to the main point.

Aikido has traditionally been presented as something New and Unique, an original creation of Morihei Ueshiba.

Stan Pranin, of course, did a lot to debunk that and show the linkages back to Daito-ryu.

What I was trying to show was that there is a core linkage - admitted and cited by Ueshiba himself, to a long tradition reaching back to China.

I hope that the blog was a clear way to show that linkage in a way that's difficult to dispute and simple to understand. Of course, there is also a lot of other evidence for these kinds of links - but that will come up later.

Whether the composition of that linkage is some form of internal training, or not, I didn't want to address in that one post in any depth, it just gets too complex, I think.

Of course, there's a pretty good chance that will come up in some future discussion...

Sure thing. I can only applaud the way you are able to "shape" getting a very complex and "controversial" point across in quite simple to understand writing. Hey, if a non native speaker like myself is able to read it (more or less ) then I don't see how native speakers can't. Unless they ain't willing to listen....

One other whole area of questioning and research that people brush off. Shamanism. Paranormal powers. I can hear the scoffing - but is it any different from scoffing about IT?

There are a number of descriptions of Ueshiba calling down the gods (Re Mariye Takahashi's account on Aikido Journal, for one). I've read others, including by Shioda. Now Takeda Sokaku is sometimes described as showing a level of intuition (also a manifestation of aiki in the literature in question) that is nearly paranormal. But Ueshiba is described as doing things that no one - I repeat no one - in Daito-ryu is described - or claims. This is easy to brush off. Are the people who expeirenced paranormal experiences in connection with Osensei the most susceptible, the most credulous, the most bliss-ninnied as all? Like Shioda Gozo, for example?

Abe Seiseki asserted that Ueshiba was doing something different - definitively different from Daito-ryu. Now - don't get your knickers in a twist - aikiboyz - I'm not talking about technique, and I'm not talking about the IS/aiki paradigm. I think he was talking about these other powers that Ueshiba seemed to have access to.

See, if you all intend to do justice to Ueshiba, it's not enough to bring him back to aiki, so to speak, to reserrect the internal strength paradigm. You all (and me too) have been the brunt of heated denial - that this IS has anything to do with Ueshiba, that it's a fantasy, whatever.

Well, given that there are all these accounts of ueshiba doing things beyond that - accounts by Shioda, among others, then perhaps a whole other area of research would be to compile all those accounts in one place, and see if there are any operating principles.

Deal with it, kids. Ueshiba's aikido was not only DAito-ryu with a religious trippy overlay, just as it was not merely watered down DR. Maybe it's all fantasy. BUT -
1. When terry Dobson describes ueshiba as grabbing his wrist and feeling like a red hot wire ran through his flesh, when Shirata describes the agony of his yonkyo, when an old guy from Tomiki cricles states that everytime he laid hands on me, it hurt, and Mochizuki stated that the reason they took jumping ukemi was to get away from being grabbed by him - all of this is a combination of raw power and Daito-ryu, together. That's the way some people describe the yonkyo in Daito-ryu - recently had that on another discussion thread. Fair enough.
2. BUT - when Dobson describes deciding that he's going to kill the old man, to attack him with full force and hold nothing back and suddenly find himself looking down at the earth, the emerald/blue globe of the earth, falling back through the earth's atmosphere, it taking all the time a free-fall from the upper atmosphere would take, and then BOOM, impact on the mat, to find Osensei looking down on him with a knowing look in his eyes. - - well, that's not Daito-ryu. It may be too many drugs -except Terry wasn't high. It may be fantasy. Or - maybe all those austerities enabled Ueshiba to tap into a different realm of power as well - that legendarily held by shaman (Kiichi Hogen was believed to be a tengu, as I recall - and was legendarily believed to have all sorts of superhuman powers.).

Anyway, it would be kind of funny if those who are outraged or dismayed or disappointed that most of aikido is not interested in the IS/aiki that if Ueshiba presented, would, on the other hand, dismiss the various accounts of other powers.